The Attorney General of New Brunswick, T.J. Burke, announced last week a suit will be launched by the province against 14 tobacco companies.
The claim? People are dying prematurely in the province due to smoking, which costs the province health dollars. Grounds have been presented of alleged misrepresentation of the hazards of tobacco smoke.
Health Minister Mike Murphy said,
The suit is on behalf of people whose health has been harmed by tobacco products, families who have lost loved ones to tobacco-related illness, and taxpayers who have borne the added costs to the health-care system
Legislative Basis
New Brunswick follows a previous suit in 2001 by B.C. on similar ground, which has yet to be resolved. Rothmans, Inc. states that the suit was not unexpected,
The legal action has been brought pursuant to the Tobacco Damages and Health Care Costs Recovery Act (New Brunswick) which was recently proclaimed in force.
The new Act states,
2(1) Her Majesty in right of the Province has a direct and distinct action against a manufacturer to recover the cost of health care benefits caused or contributed to by a tobacco-related wrong…
2(4) In an action under subsection (1), Her Majesty in right of the Province may recover the cost of health care benefits
(a) for particular individual insured persons, or
(b) on an aggregate basis, for a population of insured persons as a result of exposure to a type of tobacco product.
The two-year limitation period stipulated in s. 6 would have expired this June, making the suit more than likely within the next few months.
A Money Grab, or Good Social Policy?
Tobacco manufacturers are disputing the claims. Imperial Tobacco states that the government earns 18 times more in tobacco taxes than the entire industry combined, and that this is motivated by nothing more than greed.
Imperial Tobacco President and CEO, Benjamin Kemball, said,
It is hypocritical that governments, like New Brunswick, turn around and sue a legal industry that they oversee and license while allowing an illegal tobacco industry to flourish…This lawsuit is a waste of taxpayers’ money and will never result in the monetary windfall the New Brunswick government hopes for.
But the province is specifically seeking damages to subsidize health care costs, which are skyrocketing across the country, in no small part due to the rise of tobacco-related illnesses. The epidemiological information cited in s. 5 of the Act could prove a substantial causal link.
Should manufacturers be held liable in this manner?
In the end, the lawyers always win.
Kemball predicts that the suit will be unsuccessful, and take many years to resolve.
But he does concede that someone will benefit from the entire ordeal – the lawyers.
We the smokers should in turn sue them both to have the monies from any settlement turned over directly from the courts to those addicted to tobbaco for the last 30 years for the suffering we endure every day and can then get real help to quit smoking as with the government run VLT’s they only apply band aid solutions to anything they touch when they are making millions for their coffers.
Just like the road tax, the gas tax, the tobacco tax, the bottle tax and I could go on and on because these taxes never get to where they are suppose to be assigned to and end up in places like a new plane for the NB Gov. or to pay for the fishing trip at the Gulch, or to their new golf course that the average Joe blow like me could never afford to play at.
Again I could go on and on and it’s not just our province either as they all have their good o’l boys clubs.